love poem

Trusty old Homer! to thee I confide the secret so tender;
For the raptures of love none but the bard should e'er know.

Fame with the vulgar expires; but, Muse immortal, thou bearest
Those whom thou lovest, who love thee, into Mnemosyne's arms.

Let thy speech be to thee what the body is to the loving;
Beings it only can part,--beings it only can join.

Dearly I love a friend; yet a foe I may turn to my profit;
Friends show me that which I can; foes teach me that which I should.

Stern as my conscience, thou seest the points wherein I'm deficient;
Therefore I've always loved thee, as my own conscience I've loved.

In all I wish, how happy should I be,
Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee!
So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise;
And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Thy traps are laid with such peculiar art,
They catch the cautious, let the rash depart.
Most nets are fill'd by want of thought and care
But too much thinking brings us to thy snare;
Where, held by thee, in slavery we stay,
And throw the pleasing part of life away.
But, what does most my indignation move,
Discretion! thou wert ne'er a friend to Love:

Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the love
Which warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother's heart above--
Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of passion wakes,
And glimmering on the conscious eye--the world in glory breaks?

And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?
Buying with love that never sleeps the darling's happy sleep?
With her own life she fans and feeds that weak life's trembling rays,
And with the sweetness of the care, the care itself repays.

Rightly said, Schlosser! Man loves what he has; what he has not, desireth;
None but the wealthy minds love; poor minds desire alone.

Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges,
Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife;
But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shining
Lovingly forth to the heart; so let it shine to the eye!

Lovely he looks, 'tis true, with the light of his torch now extinguished;
But remember that death is not aesthetic, my friends!